Analysis: 16 Kindle Book Marketing Strategies (Dissected and Graded)

You know, the theory that states 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts.

When it comes to Kindle Publishing, I feel this rule has many applications.

Sadly, one of them is that 80 percent of book sales are completely out of your hands. If Amazon “likes” your book, they’ll work hard to promote in places like their search engine results, the “Customers Also Bought” section, top category lists and targeted email campaigns.

It’s awesome to know that Amazon does a lot to market your books. The problem? This means that you as an author can only do so much to increase sales. In my experience, only 20 percent of my unit sales are directly affected by specific marketing strategies I’ve implemented. Everything else is driven by the Kindle marketplace.

The good news?

While your efforts only have a minimal impact on book sales, there are a handful of strategies that can have a significant impact on your bottom line. The trick is to know what actually works and what doesn’t.

Today’s post is a special one. Instead of talking about what works, I will show real-world data on the different marketing techniques I’ve tested over the past year. Each strategy will be analyzed, dissected and given an overall grade. Then, at the end, I’ll provide a couple of recommendations based 100 percent on the techniques I’m personally using in my Kindle business.

Let’s get to it.

DevelopGoodHabits.com: A Year’s Worth of Data

If you’ve followed along with the Authority Internet Business case study, then you know I started monetizing my site DevelopGoodHabits.com (DGH) about a year ago (May 2013). From the beginning, I’ve been fairly vigilant about tracking each marketing campaign. This means I have a year’s worth of data from every email, Fiverr gig, advertisement, social media campaign and section of my blog.

With a few exceptions (which I’ll mention), the following analysis will only contain marketing campaigns for my “habit books” that I promoted through the DGH brand, with a date range of May1, 2013 to April 30, 2014. This means I won’t analyze the other 33 books in my catalog. This is an important distinction because I wanted to give the best real-world example of what actually works with launching new books and increasing sales on old ones.

How to Create Kindle Book Tracking Links

Unfortunately, not everyone can create tracking links for their books. You have to be part of Amazon’s Associates program, which isn’t available in many states and countries. That said, if you’re really interested in turning a Kindle business into a full-time gig, then you could always create an LLC in an Amazon-approved state and then open up an account there.

WARNING: This is not legal advice, just a suggestion. I’d recommend talking to a lawyer if this is something you’d like to do.

Creating a tracking link isn’t that hard, but here is a short tutorial.

First, create a new campaign for whatever you’re trying to measure. In your Associates account, do this by selecting the “manage” link:

Next, click the “Add Tracking ID” link:

Third, create a unique tracking ID. Pay close attention to this step because if you have dozens of books and marketing campaigns, then it’s important to use an intelligent naming convention. For instance, I prefer to use short acronyms and abbreviations that describe each title in the following order:

The Book Line –> Marketing Strategy –> Individual Campaign –> Book Promoted

So let’s pretend I’m promoting a book called “Supercool Habits” as part of my habit book line. The marketing strategy would be email and the individual campaign would be the book launch.

All you have to do is create this label, search for it, and if it’s not already used, add it as a tracking link.

Here’s how this would look in Amazon:

Once you’ve set up a link, select it on the left side of the screen and click the Links & Banners –> Product Links option on the top part of your screen:

Finally, look for the book on the next page by searching for the title within the Kindle store; then select the “Get Link” option.

Don’t worry; this whole process is actually really easy once you’ve done it a few times.

At this point, you might be wondering if it’s really worth it to track individual campaigns. My answer is a resounding YES! This goes back to our discussion of the 80/20 rule. By identifying the marketing campaigns that work, you know where to best spend your time and money. This kind of information is priceless when it comes to growing your Kindle business.

With that in mind, let’s go over the data from the past year. To keep things interesting, let me go from worst to best.

16 Kindle Book Marketing Strategies (Analyzed and Graded)

#1: Fiverr Promotions

Clicks: 820 / Sales: 0 / Conversion Rate: 0.00%

Analysis: We’ve all been tempted to purchase one of those Fiverr gigs that promise to promote a book to “thousands” of loyal fans and followers. But have you ever tracked the success of these campaigns? I have, and the results are horrendous.

25 campaigns, $125 and five hours later, I can say with certainty that Fiverr sucks when it comes to promoting a paid or discounted book. Sure, it might be great for promoting a free offer, but I honestly feel that even if someone downloads your free book, they probably won’t turn into a paying customer.

Grade: F-

#2: SlideShare Presentations

Clicks: 58 / Sales: 0 / Conversion Rate: 0.00%

Analysis: In my last traffic and income report, I raved about the awesomeness of SlideShare.net. Unfortunately, I’ve discovered that while it’s a great way to build an email list, it doesn’t generate book sales.

So far, I’ve created three different SlideShare decks and not one has generated sales. I’m still going to test it a few more times, but so far it’s a dud. My thinking is that this site is considered “cold traffic” so you need to get people on a list and build a relationship before asking for a sale.

Grade: D

#3: Call-to-Actions (CTA) in the Backs of Your Books

Clicks: 644 / Sales: 42 / Conversion Rate: 6.52%

Analysis: This strategy is a major disappointment. For many months, I operated under the illusion that I was being pretty smart by creating a targeted “call to action” at the end of every book. The idea here is I would identify “what else” readers would want after reading a book, then I would recommend one specific title that would help them. In theory, this would encourage readers to keep buying more books.

To be honest, this strategy has been a flop. Sure, it has generated 42 sales, but the conversion rate isn’t great and this is the result from more than 10,000 book purchases over the course of two months. Do the math and you’ll see that the numbers are pretty low.

Grade: D+

#4: Email to Author Page

Clicks: 56 / Sales: 7 / Conversion Rate: 12.50%

Analysis: Later on, we’ll talk about the importance of email marketing. However, this strategy isn’t always a magic pill for generating sales. For instance, one strategy I tried was creating an autoresponder email (almost like a solo ad) that promoted my habits author page. I ran this for a month and only saw seven total sales.

As you’ll see, an autoresponder sequence can do amazing things for your book business, but there’s a risk every time you “pitch” a product to subscribers. Done incorrectly, every marketing campaign will hurt your overall relationship. In my opinion, promoting just my author page is not worth the cost of potentially damaging my relationship with readers.

Grade: C-

#5: Sidebar Sticky Widget

Clicks: 408 / Sales: 46 / Conversion Rate: 11.27%

Analysis: This is another example of my delusions of grandeur being dashed by cold, hard data. On DGH, I installed a widget that randomly displays a clickable image of one of my books, which sticks to the page as a reader scrolls down. In a year’s time, this has only generated 46 sales. We’re talking about a site that gets hundreds of visitors a day, and this technique has only generated a sale about once every nine days. Ouch!

The only reason I didn’t grade this lower is because I don’t have anything better to put in its place. Eventually, I’m going to find a better way to leverage this area of my blog.

Grade: C

#6: Menu Link

Clicks: 768 / Sales: 63 / Conversion Rate: 8.2%

Analysis: The DGH blog also has a direct link to my habit books in the header tab. Like the sidebar widget, this has been in place for almost a year, and the sales don’t add up to much.

Grade: C

#7: “Latest” Email

Clicks: 254 / Sales: 22 / Conversion Rate: 8.66%

Analysis: After testing a dedicated email to my author page (strategy #4), I changed the scope of the message and created a “blind” link that recommended my latest book. The idea here is I’d have a permanent autoresponder that encouraged readers to check out special deals and offers. All I had to do was swap out the link whenever I had something new to offer.

I’m currently testing this strategy, but so far I’ve only seen so-so results. Again, there is a cost to being too promotional with your email list. Frankly, I don’t think 22 sales in a month is worth this cost.

Grade: C

#8: Thank You Page

Clicks: 566 / Sales: 86 / Conversion Rate: 15.19%

Analysis: This is another strategy I’ve recently started to test. Whenever people subscribe to your list, they’re brought to a “thank you page,” which acts as a reminder to check their inboxes for the free offer and encourages them to take a specific action. In the past, I’ve used this area to build up my social media platforms, but for the past month, I’ve tested promoting my latest Countdown Deal or book launch.

So far the results have been decent—about three sales a day. That said, the thank you page is one of the most important areas of your website. Like your email list, if you get too “promotion happy,” you could lose credibility with subscribers.

Grade: C+

#9: Hello Bar

Clicks: 277 / Sales: 45 / Conversion Rate: 16.24%

Analysis: I’ve only tested Hello Bar for a few weeks. Basically, this is a plugin that generates a clickable banner ad at the top of your blog. What makes it compelling is you can test different color/text/book promos to see what actually works for your audience. (Important: Hello Bar doesn’t work in some browsers, so I recommend using Firefox.)

I’d say 45 sales in a few weeks’ time is worth a closer look. Currently I’m playing around with the color schemes and calls to action. I hope to find the right formula to maximize book sales.

Grade: B-

#10: Facebook (Organic)

Clicks: 408 / Sales: 72 / Conversion Rate: 17.65%

Analysis: Let me start by saying I’m not a Facebook expert. Actually, I’m pretty bad at all forms of social media. That said, I started tracking this traffic source about two months ago and was honestly surprised that my half-assed efforts generated decent book sales.

Now what do I mean by “organic” Facebook? Basically, it means I’m part of a Kindle-specific group where I try to regularly provide value, plus I have about 2,000 friends on my page. To be honest, I don’t follow any sort of strategy with this site. I often forget to mention my latest book on my page. But, these aren’t bad results for a traffic source that I often forget about.

Grade: B-

#11: Kindle Countdown Deal “Solo Email”

Clicks: 497 / Sales: 89 / Conversion Rate: 17.9%

Analysis: Now we’re starting to talk about the benefits of having a large email list. Last month, I tested the strategy of sending a “solo email” for a book that’s going through a Countdown Deal (“70 Healthy Habits”). In the past, I resisted this idea because I thought that most subscribers wouldn’t be interested in my older books, but this one test showed that it’s smart to promote your older titles to an email list.

The trick, I feel, is to occasionally promote a Countdown Deal—no more than once or twice a month. Plus, you want to send this message to the subscribers who have completely gone through your engagement-building autresponder sequence (more on this later.)

Overall, I’m loving this strategy so far and will continue to test it.

Grade: B

#12: Group Author Event

Clicks: 610 / Sales: 544 / Conversion Rate: 89.2% * (see notes)

Analysis: One strategy that’s extremely successful is to be part of a group author event. This is where you get a bunch of writers together (that all have a similar theme to their books) where they all offer a price break on their book. One of these events can get a lot of publicity because each person is supposed to promote it to their followers.

At the end of February, I was part of the “March to a Bestseller” event hosted by Bryan Cohen. Unfortunately, I can’t accurately track what this event brought in sales. I know that the link to my list generated 544 total book sales, with 29 purchases of my title “Writing Habit Mastery.” What I do know is at the end of my Countdown Deal, this book had 796 total sales, which made it one of my successful promotions to date.

Overall, I recommend being part of an author event if you’re asked. I’m just not sure I’d be interested in putting one together because that it’s a time consuming strategy (again a big thanks to Bryan for his hard work).

Grade: B+

#13: In Content Blog Links

Clicks: 1805 / Sales: 304 / Conversion Rate: 16.84%

Analysis: Recommending your books within blog content is a decent way to supplement your sales. While you won’t get a flood of purchases all at once (unless you create a promotional article), you will get a sale or two per day.

Like a lot of strategies in this post, I haven’t fully tested this idea. But I feel that it doesn’t hurt to recommend a book if you’re talking about a technique that directly relates to a topic you’ve covered in one of your Kindle books.

Grade: B+

#14: “Last Chance” Offer via Email

Clicks: 495 / Sales: 89 / Conversion Rate: 17.98%

Analysis: As you’ll see in the last two strategies, sending an email during a book launch can drive a lot of sales. But many people (including myself) often forget to follow up a few days later with a quick reminder about this discount. In the last month, I’ve tested two “last chance” emails for books about to go up from the $0.99 launch price to $2.99. While the earnings aren’t astronomical, I feel they give your book that last push to improve your visibility on Amazon.

The trick to using this technique effectively is to only email the people who haven’t taken any sort of action on your previous message. Personally, I recommend contacting people who match this criteria:

Are currently subscribed

Have completed your autoresponder sequence

Didn’t click on the link to your book in the last message

As an example, here’s how this looks in Aweber for the promotion of my most recent book Habit Stacking:

You never know when someone might have missed a message. By sending a single follow-up email, you can turn those lost clicks into book readers.

Grade: A-

#15: $0.99 Book Launch via Email (Steve Scott Site)

Clicks: 3289 / Sales: 697 / Conversion Rate 21.19%

Analysis: This is the part of the analysis where I skew from a “100 percent pure case study.” About six months ago, I made the decision to promote my habit-related Kindle books to email subscribers for this site. (Read the second Traffic & Income Report for more on this decision.) I’d be lying if I said this strategy didn’t have a positive impact. In fact, I’ve sent an email for the past five book launches, which netted a total of 697 sales. As a result, this has become my #2 favorite strategy for promoting Kindle books.

Sidebar: I know a few people are annoyed with this decision. My response? I know that most people won’t buy a book – even at $0.99 – if they’re not interested in the subject matter. Yes, I’ll admit that the “Authority Internet Business” case study has been skewed because of this decision. But I also know that there are lots of people who are interested in both Internet business principles and habit development. So it would have been a dumb decision on my part to not at least offer people a chance to check out my latest book at a discounted price.

I do recognize that most people won’t have the opportunity to promote their books to multiple email lists. That said, you could gain the same benefit by aligning yourself with other successful authors in your niche. Then you can agree to help one another out by promoting your latest books through email marketing. I know this strategy works because it’s what I’m starting to do with a small group of Kindle publishers.

Grade: A

#16: $0.99 Book Launch via Email (Develop Good Habits)

Clicks: 3646 / Sales: 1054 / Conversion Rate 28.91%

Analysis: Okay, here is the cream of the crop when it comes to promoting a Kindle book. Put simply, using an email list to launch your latest Kindle book can generate a huge number of sales in a short amount of time. If you launch a book for a week at $0.99, you’ll get a lot of visibility and traction in Amazon’s marketplace. From there, Amazon will promote this book on their various sales channels.

I’ve used this sales tactic for about 10 months and, so far, it has been my top marketing strategy. You won’t make a lot of money up front, but if you can get over 100 sales in that first week, your book will start to get extra visibility on Amazon. From there, you’ll get a consistent level of sales when a book goes up to its normal “post-launch” price—usually $2.99 or higher.

Grade: A+++

How to Apply this Information to Your Kindle Business

Think back to our discussion of the 80/20 rule. If you look closely at the data, you’ll see that sales on Amazon are largely determined by a handful of strategies: email marketing, blog advertising and building relationships. So what’s the next step? In my opinion, your goal is to find what’s working for your business and focus on improving these techniques.

I feel the “key takeaway” from this article is the importance of email marketing when it comes to driving Kindle book sales. I guaran-freakin-tee that it’s going to get harder and harder to compete as more people discover the advantages of Kindle publishing. In order to stand out, you’ll need an email list of people interested in your niche and books. Honestly, the best thing you can do right now is start building a list (here’s how) and identify the traffic strategies that convert browsers into subscribers (here’s how).

Now let’s say you’re a little more advanced and *get* the importance of list building. What do you do then? My advice is to tweak what’s working and see if you can maximize the results. Put simply, I’d recommend putting your list-building efforts into overdrive.

As an example, last week I looked at the above data and realized two things: 1. Email marketing was my top strategy. 2. Most of my other strategies generated minimal results. As a result, over the next few months I’m doing a number of things to improve the effectiveness of my marketing efforts:

#1. Create a New Lead Magnet. The “77 Good Habits to Live a Better Life” report is getting a bit stale. I feel that my opt-in rates will improve if I create a slam-dunk, no-brainer type of free offer. Specifically, I’m toying with the idea of giving away the audio version of my “Habit Stacking” book (credit to Chandler Bolt for this awesome suggestion). I feel this is a smart move because it’s something that I plan on actually selling. So every new subscriber gets a freebie that has real-world value.

#2. Substitute Low-Converting Offers. As you’ve seen, a lot of marketing campaigns simply don’t generate a significant amount of book sales, so it only makes sense to swap them out with a free offer. Specifically, I could easily substitute the calls to action at the end of my book with a compelling free offer. That would take readers who might like my book and hopefully turn them into loyal fans. Sure, I might lose a sale or two, but I feel this will have a positive long-term impact whenever I have a new or discounted book to offer.

#3. Build a Better Autoresponder Sequence. As of right now, my autoresponder sequence is a mix of quality content and direct sales pitches. The “salesy” stuff doesn’t convert well, so the smart move is to create a 14- to 21-day series of emails that focuses on relationship-building. If you think about, a good sequence is only about 7 to 12 messages long, and by the time subscribers are done with it, they will be familiar with how habit development can help them.

This strategy is similar to what Gary Vaynerchuk recommends: Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. If I can give away great content in the first few weeks, it won’t be hard to convince subscribers to check out a new book and possibly leave a positive review.

#4. Generate More Traffic. Throughout this case study, I’ve emphasized the importance of not relying too much on Amazon. It’s nice to see a steady stream of sales, but you never want to assume it’ll be around forever. That’s why it’s important to build your own stream of traffic.

In regards to improving sales, I now know that email marketing is my #1 strategy, so it only makes sense to add as many subscribers as possible. A simple way to do this is to generate more Web traffic. That’s why, for the next few months, I’m focusing on improving my results from SlideShare and organic search results. (Here’s a post that dissects the different sources of traffic to DGH.)

#5. Test Paid Advertising. In the past, I’ve avoided the expensive paid book advertising platforms like Ereader News Today and BookBub because most don’t allow tracking links. But now I feel it’s time to test them out and see if they can generate a noticeable bump in sales.

Your Thoughts?

Honestly, it was a little depressing to see the data behind a year’s worth of book sales. It’s not easy to realize that my “proven” sales strategies aren’t as effective as I once thought they were. And I guarantee you’d be shocked at the numbers if you tracked your marketing campaigns.

But there’s also some good news behind this data. It clearly demonstrates the value of building an email list. All you have to do is follow this very simple formula:

Content (Paid or Free) –> Free Offer on a Squeeze Page –> Multi-Week Email Sequence –> Ask Subscribers to Buy and Review a $0.99 Book (when one is available)

It really doesn’t matter if most of your marketing campaigns are a flop. As long as you’re focused on writing good books and building an email list, you’ll stand out from the competition.

Steve,
I’ve heard the saying that if you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business. Well, my friend, you definitely know your business! Although I am not selling Kindle books or planning to in the near future, your data is highly useful for anyone in online business who cares about conversion rates.

Thanks Steve! Speaking of which, after running the numbers, I definitely see that your guest posting thing is starting to pay off (opt ins & increased organic). So I’m interested in having have you do more of it.

Wow! Great post Steve – lots of detail! Thank you for tracking the results and then sharing the good stuff with us.

Quick question about SlideShare – I know you ranked it pretty low for generating sales but mentioned it’s great for list building. So, in a way, doesn’t it work well with your #1 method (email launch)? In other words, doesn’t it drive sales even if indirectly? It seems that continuing to use SlideShare to build your list would seem effective, grow the relationship, then sell during a launch. Am I missing something?

Anyway, thank you again for the research and action plan for the rest of us!

You’re absolutely right Sean. I consider SlideShare to be cold traffic, but once they’re on your list, they can easily turn into book buyers — especially if you build a relationship. I still love it for list building… so I think the smart thing would be to focus on maximizing the number of subscribers from this site.

pam

Good info here, I especially like your ‘second chance e-mail’ as I do the .99 launch release as well and will try that on the next one.

I would absolutely suggest trying ENT and BookBub… ENT is dirt cheap, not expensive at all, and you can’t lose as they only charge 25% of profits. What that means? On a recent campaign, I sold 486 books, which bumped me up to #250 in the store, huge visibility on the best-seller lists, and it cost a whopping $42.

BookBub is even cheaper….yep, cheaper. The initial outlay is higher, but the return is amazing, especially if you do a free run, which has a longer tail. You can also kill two birds with one stone if you coordinate your BB ad with a new release that hits. My $280 ad generated thousands in profit. Best thing I’ve done yet, and it’s helped keep my books up higher on the lists than ever before.

First time to visit and I have to say I’m impressed with your candor and your post. I’m not surprised at your results. Of course, they are a wee bit depressing for me as I don’ t have a list anywhere worth using. For some reason I’ve had a huge mental block for years when it comes to list building. LOL It also feels as though it’s so time-consuming. Really enjoyed reading your post today. Thanks!

Vikk– Hope it pushes you a little to get started with list building. I know it takes a bit to create a free offer and a small email sequence, but the effort is well worth it because you’re basically building an audience that can be used in countless ways.

Thank you Steve, I appreciate you leading by example and reinforcing the message that at the end of the day, people and the relationships we cultivate and nurture are key to our business growth. I love the fact you’ve taken the time to track, monitor, analyse and share your results. Helps me to stay inspired and focused that Rome wasnt built in a day and to allow for the organic growth of my business. Thank you

What a brilliant article Steve! I’ve written a handful of ebooks and published them to Kindle, but while I get a few sales here and there it’s certainly not an impressive stream of passive income. However I definately feel like I’ve picked up some useful tips – and also from the comments here too – so with a new book going live shortly it’ll be interesting to see what sort of results I can generate. Thanks for the solid info.

I think part of your success is that you drive traffic to Amazon. They really are not stupid nor charitable. You drive buyers and browsers to their site, they promote your books. It’s how it works.
In a way, we, authors, are rewarded by Amazon for bringing more customers to them.

#8-10: On your blog and Facebook you are just being your( charmy and handsome )self. The best marketing strategy ever. It pays off.

My traffic is tiny, but 30% is recurring and about 50% is coming from my personal activity on the Web- comments, Twitter, FB. It’s because I don’t pretend anything.

I think you’re on to something Michal. I do find that when I drive extra traffic to Amazon, I do see a significant bump in sales–across all my books. It’s good to see tht 30% of you traffic is recurring. It shows that you’re starting to build a nice platform for the books.

Fan-freaking-tastic. Just awesome stuff. Seriously, Pat Flynn should have you on his show talking about ebooks. Slideshare is initially cold, but…I’d be interested to know if your #1 strategy was so successful in part because Slideshare generated great optins for your email list. Again, it always goes back to the list, doesn’t it?

Thanks Tara! Would love to go on his podcast. For now, I don’t think that SlideShare has a huge impact on sales. The opt-ins are only about a month old. That said, I feel that this traffic source will become a huge part of my business in the next quarter.

Yeah Iman…I think it’s because my list subscribers are used to hearing from me about Kindle books. So I guess they’re considered “action takers.” Plus it doesn’t hurt that most offers are $0.99. You don’t have to be a marketing wiz to get people to buy books at that price.

Thanks so much, Steve. I was always sceptical on spending money while doing book promotions. Your analysis of Fiverr gig actually proved what I thought. I am on a shoe string budget and think the best way to promote your books is to write more books and use websites like pixelofink and others to promote your book (without paying them anything) during Kindle Countdown deals. I take your advice of building an e-mail list seriously even though I have had not much of a benefit with e-mail subscribers. Most of them do not click even when the book is FREE.

Honestly, Fiverr was a huge disappointment. I guess I made the rookie mistake of thinking I’d get amazing results for basically paying nothing. Keep at the list building stuff…I know it can be a pain, but it’s well worth it. And don’t worry about the click thru rates. Mine typically get 30% open with maybe half of that clicking on a link. And honestly…these are pretty decent rates. So don’t be discouraged if you fail to see every person taking action on a free book.

Why thank you Hazel! I try to create as valuable information as possible… writing about these things is also a nice outlet because my girlfriend’s eyes glaze over every time I talk about promotions, Countdown Deals and click thru rates. 🙂

I have just created a slide show in order to promote one of my books. I put an Amazon link at the end, which I may now change to a link to my site instead, since you say that this hasn’t resulted in any sales.

It took ages to put that slide show together – can I ask, since I know you mentioned that you outsource this task, what would the pay scale be for something like this?

ALSO – List building seems to be the thing we should all be focussing on. How big is your list for DGH?

Victoria — Yeah, I didn’t find the SlideShares to convert that well. When it comes to a pay scale, my honest answer is I don’t know. Basically, I got lucky by hiring a VA (from Virtual Staff Finder) who had a desire to learn this stuff. I know some people charge a couple hundred dollars for a nice presentation. What I suggest? Post a job on Elance to see what people offer. Worst case scenario…if you don’t like their rates, you can always cancel the project.

Re: DGH Email list. It just reach 7K this morning. I’m hoping that it’ll reach 10K by the end of the summer–really focusing on list building lately.

Steve, don’t you dare get depressed! The figures and your analysis of them are awesome and fascinating. Thank you for sharing them all and I am sure your diligence will drive you on to even more business growth!

I was particularly interested in the results from the Group Author event as it demonstrates the power of team work and also that even whilst ‘working on your own’ there are always ways in which team work and working together will give very positive results.

Thanks again Steve for all your hard work and candour in sharing your most excellent results.

It doesn’t feel like five months to me. I’m interested in how you tracked all this data. I’m in the process of improving how I’m tracking my info (from not at all to very basic at the moment). Do you keep stats in an Excel spreadsheet? How do you keep tabs on all these campaigns?

Hey Stephenie… No, I typically just crunch the numbers after a lengthy period. I’ll keep these numbers somewhere. Then I look at my metrics every month to get an overview of what’s actually working, but I probably won’t do this exercise again for another three months or so.

Scott, I’ve been struggling to see how and where I get any sales from. I have been looking for different strategies to improve my marketing skills and abilities. This will definitely help me focus in the right areas. I have seen the same as you. Doing the same things over and over doesn’t generate sales. New ideas done correctly will help me. Thanks for fine article. Regards Steve.

I will question your decision to do an audiobook giveaway though. As you know, I narrate a book or two almost every week and I’ve never bought or listened to a free audiobook once in my life!

More importantly, I tested adding audiobook versions of a couple of my books to an old bundled product I sold on my site. I thought it would be a homerun, but like most sales experiments, it seemed to have no effect on sales whatsoever.

Also, I think ACX will get their panties in a wad if you give it away on site AND sell it. With Habit Stacking doing so well, I think you might be jeopardizing $1,000+ per month in audiobook sales.

What’s worked for me is calling my autoresponder series an “E Course” and making that my offer. And then way overdelivering on quality with no marketing whatsoever to get that open rate as high as possible for when I do run promotions and have new releases.

Hey Matt — Appreciate the feedback and candor (as always.) Overall, I do think it’s an idea worth testing. You know me, I don’t make a long-term decision, until I’m 100% sure it’s the right move. So I’ll probably do a few small campaigns and watch the conversion rate like a hawk.

Re: ACX.com. For now, I’m going to have a non-exclusive contract for that one book (25% vs. 40%)…sure I might cannibalize some sales, but I can improve conversion rates even by 10%, it would be well worth the investment. Overall though, I do think it’s something worth testing.

I wonder if you can just list it non-exclusive and then switch up to exclusive a couple weeks later after you’ve done some testing. I’m not sure what the terms are on that. We’ve never listed something non-exclusive.

I think you are comparing “apples and oranges” in a lot of cases. For example, with a fiverr gig – these are mostly going to reach “cold leads”. They probably have never heard of you before. Your goal with these types of people should be to get them into your funnel and start building a relationship, not neccessarily “close” them on a sale right away. It is possible that some of the 1000 “failures to close” from the fiverr gig, joined your email list, and bought something later. You would have no way of knowing this. I would categorize certain “gigs” as bad – not fiverr as a whole. That is like saying “eBay is bad” after having a bad transaction.

A link in the back of a book, or someone on a previous customer email list is going to be a much “warmer” lead, and much more likely to buy something from you.

I think with fiverr gigs – they are great for doing things that you were planning on doing yourself, but for $5 you can have someone else do it, giving you more time to focus on things like writing.

I also disagree with your comment that people who picked up a free book, will not buy one later. I got a few of your books when they were on a free promo, and have bought several since then. I also left reviews for the free books, and I am sure that helped future sales of those books.

Me, too, Tim. I received a couple of free books from Steve. I cannot remember, for the life of me, how I got going with him, though. I probably found a title via an Amazon subject search.

The quality of the information was so good, I got on Steve’s list. (Probably as a result of something I read in the back of the book – I wanted the free thing he was offering.)

I now own 16 Steve Scott books and as soon as I get an email from him about a blog post, I always head straight out here. I usually buy his new books, because I know they will be a good read.

—-

Turning to talk directly to Steve…

You are an example of how to do it right. Don’t discount the value of what you put in the back of the books. I started expanding my S.S. library that way and then moved to your email list. Now, I buy from your list. If I hadn’t seen the recommendations at the back of your book, I wouldn’t be on your list at all.

Okay to Rozanne & Tim — I stand corrected. Thanks to both of you for reading the free book and going on to check out the others. Truly appreciate it. 🙂

Also appreciate the clarification Rozanne. I’ll definitely keep the “More Books By Steve” at the end. But what I’m thinking about changing is the “pushy” call-to-action. Perhaps it would be better to include some sort of free engagement building content.

Hey Tim– Didn’t mean to come across as hating on Fiverr. I use it all the time for a bunch of small tasks. What I do question is the quality of ANY type of traffic from this site.

You are right that free readers do turn into paying customers. I just feel that the people who only download free books aren’t your ideal customer. And often, free books will often lead to negative reviews.

Overall though. The point of the post was to show where you can best focus your marketing strategies. If people are buying Fiverr gigs, thinking that will help sell books, then they’re (in my opinion) wasting their time.

Appreciate the comment Tim. Gives me some food for thought.

Lyndsey

Hi Steve,

Great analysis you have made here. One question though, I’ve noticed that many of your books stay in the less 10,000 for months. How do you do that? How do you keep the momentum going?

gianna metzinger

Steve:
You are such a class act. With an e-mail box chock full of junk and promotion, your e-mails are CONSISTENTLY the ones that I always open and enjoy. I purchase almost all of your books. I am a firm believer in karma. It is all coming back to you, my friend. You share and you educate. And you smile 🙂 Thank you. Sincerely.

I agree most with Tim and Roxanne. Marketing and sales are two different processes and a lot of people try to make them one and the same or the expect the wrong thing from the wrong one.

Most marketing experts will tell you that it takes multiple exposures to something before people buy. Not always of course, but very often. So to expect someone to see one Sllideshare presentation and buy is probably not terribly realistic. That is a better awareness or marketing channel rather than a “hey buy my stuff now” part of the sales process.

Also, the typical numbers for sales conversions from warm email lists are often expected to be single digits, so to convert in double digits is an accomplishment. No matter what you’re selling there will always be some things that work better than others, so really, if you look at the big picture, you’ve done really well. Granted, you have to weigh the time/costs vs. return, but again, marketing is not the same as sales so is some of that effort worth the exposure? That is a little harder to measure, but I would encourage people, especially those starting out to try things that make sense for their audience, and things they like. You don’t always know how the chain of events links together. Thanks as always for the insights.

Great points Cheryl. Overall though I do believe it’s best to crunch numbers and see where to best spend your effort. You’re right that email lists are warm leads. So I guess the lesson learned (for me) is not be so focused on getting people to buy right away. Instead get people on a list, provide value, THEN promote a Kindle book. Regarding SlideShare…it was a mistake on my part to create presentations that directly ask for sales. Better to cultivate those relationships.

This is great information! Thank you for being willing to share the “nitty-gritty” of what has and hasn’t been working for you!

Just one caveat: It’s against the Amazon Associates terms of service to use their links in many of the places you mentioned. It might be a better option to use something like bit.ly. (If you have a bit.ly account, you can not only shorten your links, you can view stats on them.)

Rachel — I’ve heard conflicting information about that (even from Amazon). Frankly, I don’t see why it would be against their TOS if you’re marketing your own books on your own email list. That said, I will double check my facts.

It specifically says you can’t use their links in email. That makes no sense to me – why WOULDN’T they want us pushing their product to our email lists?! – but I’ve read it in the ToS myself.

I’m not trying to be the goody-two-shoes or something; I just wouldn’t want someone’s account to get shut down!

They make their stuff a pain to find/read/understand, because it’s about half a dozen separate documents on separate pages, but it’s in section 6 of the “Program Participation Requirements”:

“you will not engage in any promotional, marketing, or other advertising activities in any offline manner, including by using any of our or our affiliates’ trademarks or logos (including any Amazon Mark), any Content, or any Special Link in connection with an offline promotion or in any other offline manner (e.g., in any printed material, mailing, SMS, MMS, email or attachment to email….”

“Special Links” are defined elsewhere as the affiliate tracking links. So…they specifically say you can’t use a tracking link in an email (or text message or printed document, etc…)

With all the confusion about using A’zon associate links or not I did send out an email today and received an answer within hours.
Here’s the mail I send:
Hi,
There seems to be confusion about the use of Amazon Associate ID’s in sales of Kindle books.
From my understanding it is allowed to use this ID in social networks like Facebook and twitter to sell your own books. I am aware that I cannot use it in emails, and the like.
Others say that using the associate ID to sell your own books is prohibited at all.
Could you please shed some light on this issue? I would be most grateful!

Here’s the reply I got:

Message From Customer Service
Hello,

I apologize for any misunderstanding to our program, but you can add Amazon.com Associates Links into any site you have access to, providing the host of the site pages allows advertisement computer languages and links added into their site/pages. If you are a seller in the Amazon.com MarketPlace Program, you can link to your own items being sold on Amazon.com through the Associates Program. We do not have restrictions with sellers linking to their own items and displaying the links on their own sites.

You can also certainly add Amazon.com links in your Facebook and Twitter pages.

However, you can link directly to the Amazon.com homepage or an item’s detail page which is not formatted out of HTML or JavaScript, by using a simple URL text link.

And think of it. Let’s asume you wrote a book with the $0.99 price tag. You get 35% on that from KDP. When you promote that book using an amazon affiliate ID you get another 5% making you now 40% on that book. Nice bonus I’d say!

Hi Steve
Firstly thank you very much for putting yourself ‘out-there’ with honesty and sheer grit. Awesome.

I put your writing a book in 21 days into action for my second book – and that was great. Published yesterday. My goal is 10 books this year. I share with heaps on your behalf and a friend who has been going to write her book for some 10 years – is well on the way now, and loving every moment – thanks to you.

I find marketing very difficult – so am slowly implementing your suggestions. I am not real computer savvy, but am able to get help on the way, which is just great.

Thanks Barbi! Glad you’re taking action and focused on getting quality books out there. Hope the marketing stuff helps as well. I think that having a solid plan in place is one of the tricks to doing well in the long term.

Thank you Steve. I’m a new fan…mostly because I’ve been toying with the idea of a second edition to my freebie. I’ve been told the first edition is way too good to offer as a lead-magnet, and I haven’t monetized as yet.. was too busy list-building and learning all this stuff. This post tells me I’m on the right track.

Hope to join you one day in the not-too-distant future in co-promoting awesome stuff!

Rodney — Sorry for the delay. You’re on the right track. If people are telling you that you should be selling your freebie, that’s a good thing. I’d recommend doing a 2nd edition and using this to ramp up your list-building efforts.

Hey Steve – great post and a tonne of great comments too! I just wanted to throw my two cents in about the call to action at the back of your books. I too bought either a 99 cent book or a free one and bought other titles from there. I may not have purchased them directly from that call to action at the back but it’s definitely what made me realise you weren’t a one hit wonder and had other quality titles available. I’m pretty sure I own them all and often check for new titles. I had a question too about affiliate links. I’m part of a facebook group where they are currently discussing how Amazon do not allow affiliate links in eBooks or emails and I kept thinking “but I’ve clicked through from Steve’s books!” Do you do something special with these links that we should be doing? The consensus of the facebook group seemed to be to set up a page on your blog that features the book you are linking to and then link your book to that. Thanks a bunch for your helpful books – I’ve just released my second book after using your ’21 days’ book to get properly started!

Tracey — Yeah for most of the links I use a redirect. But most of them don’t include affiliate link, the exception being the CTA. Now, after analyzing these numbers I might change them over to a promotion of my email list.

Thanks for the comment. Glad to see you taking action on the material from the 21 Days book.

Jyotsna Ramachandran

Thank u so much Steve for the in-depth analysis. I’ve recently got into Kindle publishing. Published 4 books so far. I’ve learnt from your previous articles that outsourcing books to writers who write short 5000 word books on topics that are in trend is not a good long term strategy. Your opinion makes a lot of sense. But I have a few questions:
1) I am a jack of all trades, so I am still not confident to write my own books. If I ask my writers to create high quality books of 10-15k words, is it good enough?
2) To build a list, can I create different websites for different niches? E.g. A website for alternate therapies that’ll have all my ebooks related to that topic. Another website for productivity related books etc.
3) When I do become confident to write my own book, can I use my real name on the book? As of now I use different pen names as I am not sure if my Indian name would work for the US market.
Thanks a lot Steve for being my inspiration!

1) I’m not a huge fan of this strategy. The only way I see it working is to find someone who REALLY knows the content and picking a single market. Perhaps you could find a blogger or freelance writer in this market.

2) You could build multiple sites. But that’s a heck a lot of effort to get started. I’d recommend sticking to a single subject for the time being and focus on building that up.

3) Yes, you can use multiple names. Amazon gives you unlimited ability to do pen names. And in Author Central, you can create author profile for three different pen names.

Every time I look at the Author Rank charts for Business & Investing and see both your profiles right up at the top, amongst the most elite authors in the world, I wonder what promotional activity you’re doing that I’m not. Now I know. Btw, you’re writing is fantastic, so let’s not forget that part of the equation.

One question comes to mind – do you think there are any of your C-level activities that could have been tweaked to improve results – pushing them up into the B-level?

Hey Jason — Thanks! To be honest, I sometimes wonder how I’m up there with those heavy hitters. There are a bunch of C-Level activities which definitely could be better… I feel anything with list building and the thank you page can be improved. What I’m think is if you can use these areas to promote your latest $0.99 deal. That will give you an extra surge of sales, which could help your overall brand. That’s what I’m currently testing.

Great breakdown Steve, I always enjoy stopping by your blog. I just wanted to point out that an email list is also great for marketing in other aspects of business. I know I always try to implement it whenever I can.

So much information you provide, Steve…
Your blog posts are worth sitting down and digesting them slowly in order to get the most from it – they are full of great content.

Question: Why do you think your book Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less has been doing so good? Amazon has advertized it quite a lot! I see it everywhere. Why do you think that’s happening?

“That said, if you’re really interested in turning a Kindle business into a full-time gig, then you could always create an LLC in an Amazon-approved state and then open up an account there.”

DO NOT DO THIS!!!! It is illegal and WILL get you in trouble. The reason states are excluded is because Affiliates or Associates constitute a nexus in the state that has that law in place. If you reside in an excluded state you are a nexus and are not allowed in the associate program. Where your business is located is also counted, but either living OR doing business in a nexus state creates a nexus for you and can get you and Amazon into legal trouble.

Steve – I have to say your interview with Stansberry & Associates was awesome. I believe it was with James Altucher. It was really good about selling $40,000/mo. on Kindle. I know the strategies most “gurus” promote are garbage. It’s hard to promote any strategies when most don’t work. But it’s also hard to know it works after one or even two tries, unless that is, you get absolutely no results. I used to hear from a millionaire ebook seller that a result is a result, it’s your job to figure out what it means. Copy stinks, wrong traffic, but what I found out is it all comes down to the offer.

You can drive traffic to unheard of levels. Even targeted traffic these days seem boundless. But getting the prospect an offer that hits him/her at the right moment, the right everything, especially their current emotionally state. I used to never buy on Tuesdays because those were my workout 4am, work, sleep days. So I never bought on those days, any info products that is. When you have a list it’s easy to find out buying patterns, hence, why there an A+ plus plus for you.

I just launched my first book and $50 in sales on $2.99 so I am not yet the authority or feel really good about sharing any success.

There is a book that really helped me get started and MOTIVATED to try this. First the interview you did with S & A Radio, James Altucher, was a huge hit for me. Second is (here is a aff link if you don’t mind) for a book that is mainly fiction and some non-fiction. This guy is the best I know. And Steve Clayton gives him props in his author trainings.

I’m always thankful for informative educational posts like this one. I’m always trying to explore new promotional avenues for my website. I’ll utilize some of these tactics to see if they bring about any change in my web traffic…

HI Steve,
I am taking steps to begin building a list as fast as I can. (New website/blog going live in a few weeks, using Ian Belanger to help build site) right now though I have two books written and ready to publish in my niche and no e-mail list to speak of. What are the best strategies to launch books on Amazon between now and when I have thousands of subscribers on my list?

Hi Steve,
thank you for this valuable insight information coming directly from your experience. At the end of your post you wrote, you’ll share your tests with BOOKBub. How were the results? The ALLI members speak very good of it.
Regards

Hey Antara — Unfortunately, I’ve been rejected by BookBub on my last few requests. But I’m putting together a pretty large, extensive book that will launch in the fall. Hopefully that’ll get approved by BB and I can then share the results.

Yes, they are very picky – a non-fiction book must be at least 100 pages long. Good luck with the pitching and I’ll wait your podcast on the creativepenn. By the way, I bought your book “My blog traffic sucks” and will read it quite soon. Keep me up with your latest news.
Greetings

Re: BookBub. Definitely agree…Actually, I’m glad they have a strict standard on the quality of the content. That means when I finally (hopefully) get a book approved, I know it’ll be worth having thousands of people check it out.

Hey Steve,
Just wondering your thoughts regarding the new “Pre Order” deal on Amazon KDP?
Can you load your book into the pre order status and then when it goes off pre order immediately run a 5 day KDP select free promo? In effect this would create a much longer “free” period.
What is going to be your approach to the “pre order” deal?
looking forward to hearing from you.
Cary

Cary — To be honest, I don’t know too much about it…haven’t launched a new book since it was introduced. That said, I don’t think they’ll let you do free days with a free promo. It will be at whatever price you set it to be. Will know more when I start playing around with the pre-order option.

Had a similar experience w/ SlideShare recently. My presentation featured the top 22 of the 350+ resources named in my book, and included 2 links to buy the book on Amazon. The presentation did well, earning a brief stint featured on the homepage and generating over 10,000 views so far, but no discernible spike in book sales.

One internet marketer asks another internet marketer what one of his major goals in life is.
The other person responds by saying someday they want to be a New York Times Bestseller.
The first marketer laughs and says, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
The second marketer asks, “Why? Because you think I can’t write a book?”
The first responds, “No. Your email list has hundreds of thousands of subscribers. With one email to that list, you will be on the bestseller list before you write a single sentence in your book.”

By the way, thanks for pointing so many people in the right direction with this information. I’ve been consulting several local authors for a few years and having just discovered your site this week, the information you have here will definitely make that task much easier.

My pleasure Ernest. Glad that you find the content to be valuable enough where you’re helping local authors. Let me know if I can help in any way.

Eve Overeem

Thanks for taking your time, to write this useful informations , you inspire me to work on my Ebook i have been talking about for years now but never took any action until just recently.
I have a question, how long do you sell your ebooks for 0.99 cent ? do you increase the amount later ? because 0.99 cent is very cheap for hardwork and useful informations i will be offering buyers.
Regards,
Eve

Eve — There is no “right time” for a $0.99 launch. I tend to do these about 5 to 7 days…enough where people can grab it and hopefully get some visibility on Amazon. I’d say you at least need to do it for 3 days. Start with that and see how things go.

Raj

Thanks Steve! This is a real valuable information. I am a successful internet marketer as an Amazon affiliate and recently started Kindle journey. First month was pretty impressing as I made approx $300 from few book but then I see the real challenge. The book rank is going down and so is the sale. So it is not a straight forward you publish and earn forever method. This article gives some descend ideas on how to market your books. From my amazon affiliate experience I would say video marketing can be one more profitable way. I do sell kindle books through that fro others. Now I will sell mine.

Hey Raj — Yes, it’s definitely not a “publish and earn forever” method. There is some level of passivity, but you have to keep at the business and find out what’s working, then publish more of that type of content.

I use LeadBoxes for my newsletter signups to much effect. I integrate them with my Facebook page and subscribers get added to my Aweber mailing list. Everyone who downloads anything (free or paid) from my website also gets added to my email list which is only a few hundred people strong but the engagement rate is high (open rate around 60% and site bounce rate of less than 1%) so quality subscribers/readers are key obviously.

I also used the Smart Passive Income article below to tailor my Aweber automation processes which now channels traffic where I want it with much success (I used LeadPages to do this which easily pays for itself each month)

If Facebook is giving that level of return without even trying then I’d focus on that too personally. Rat Race Grad has some really good FB marketing info over on her site.

I make around £400 a month from download sales passive income from two sites but am very interested in investigating training programmes and Kindle books as a next step. Just added you to my Feedly – thanks for all the great advice Steve!

Great stuff J! I do agree that FB might a good way to go, but for now, I have to keep to what’s working. That said, I’m going to test an ad campaign with them in the near future. Appreciate you adding value to this post!

Hi Steve,
I sell my eBooks, videos, email lessons on golf instruction using a paid traffic selling at $30-$65/product. I look at what you are doing (which is amazing) and think what if I used a similar model? More or less profit? I was wanting to know how many ratings on Amazon for a book/Kindle eBook = how many sales? (estimate of course). 20 stars = 500 sales? 100 ratings = 5 000 sales?? I have no idea. Do you have any guides? Thanks, Anthony

Sounds like a solid niche idea. Obviously, the margins won’t be the same on Amazon, but you’ll reach a larger pool of customers.

The # of ratings don’t equate to sales. (Although lots of positive reviews will help you sell books.) What you want to look for is the Amazon Best-Sellers Rank (in the product description.) You should look for any book ideas that’s #30,000 or less, which is about 5 sales per day. The lower the better. So a book that’s in the 300 to 500 range sells about 100ish copies a day.

Very useful info about affiliate tracking as I finally use it. I want to add that Bkingts from Fiverr is a great promoter and writers from Kboards swear for their services. maybe for non-fiction doesn’t work? I don’t know.
Does your clicks and sales appear on the affiliate dashboard?

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I sometimes use affiliate links on SteveScottSite.com. This means if you decide to make a purchase, I will get a sales commission. But that doesn't mean my opinion is for sale. EVERY affiliate link on this site are to products that I've used and found useful. Please do your own research before making any purchase online.